Author Archive for: Engineering News

Johannesburg electricity utility City Power CEO Tshifularo Mashava has assured business customers in the city that the entity is working on reviewing the yearly electricity tariffs to cushion businesses from increasing tariffs, as well as to attract businesses while saving jobs. She noted that the utility wanted to ensure a balance between the needs of customers with the operational realities it encounters.

The long-established practice of extracting fossil fuels and subsidising the industries associated with it, as well as institutional and regulatory drag, pose real threats to technological progress and the renewable-energy transition towards an ecologically sustainable path, says University of the Witwatersrand Business School African Energy Leadership Centre visiting adjunct professor Dr Rod Crompton. He says the continent is “in the middle of an electricity technology tsunami”, which is, for the most part, heading in a more sustainable direction, but he questions whether these technologies can truly move humanity onto this “sustainable” path in a timely manner, owing to the slow adoption of lower emissions electricity technology in Africa.

Africa is well positioned to improve its energy security, owing to its high solar radiation factor, highlights renewable-energy business platform Discovery Green. The company says the continent’s solar radiation factor can be more than 120% higher than Europe and, therefore, the potential return of solar energy solutions would be much higher, as the continent would be able to generate electricity at a comparatively low cost.

As Africa looks to the future, the transition to sustainable energy represents both a challenge and an opportunity, highlights national industry support programme the National Cleaner Production Centre South Africa (NCPC-SA) skills development projects manager Dr Zenzile Rasmeni Masipa. She notes that, with its abundant renewable-energy resources, the continent has the potential to leapfrog traditional energy systems and build a future powered by clean energy.

AI could lead to significant energy demand growth as the technology is implemented across industries, an acceleration that could also help to halve the system’s carbon intensity by 2050, according to a new report from Shell. As productivity improvements resulting from AI – including automation, especially in manufacturing – enable major economic growth, consumption of oil will continue to expand by three to five million barrels a day into the 2030s, before peaking and then declining slowly over a long period, Shell said. Natural gas demand could increase into the 2040s while the use of petrochemicals is likely to continue into the 22nd century.